Turns out the local sheriff helped track Barnes down by running her license plate, all as a favor to the owner of the restaurant.

According to the Houston County Sheriff, Darrell Allison, though, it was no biggie.

But, countered local state Rep. John C. Tidwell, "The way I interpret it, it would be illegal," he said, explaining that license plate information is to be used only for law enforcement purposes. "The information should not have ever been given over to the business. That is information that is supposed to be dealt with by the state's agency or the official."

Choosing sides between pigs and politicians isn't easy but I'm gonna have to go with the politician on this one.

The woman wasn't asking to use the restaurant's stove to grill up her own food, or their tables to set out a picnic she'd brought from home. They're not in the bathroom-providing business, so the "these are for our customers only" argument is ridiculous. The restaurant is a place of public accommodation, as already defined in lots of legal precedent, so occasionally letting people take care of a natural (and sometimes urgently unavoidable) biological need in the facilities they're providing anyway is a normal cost of doing business.

I get that they may be trying to keep out homeless people, but that's not an excuse. If your neighborhood is that run-down that it's full of homeless people or whatever, maybe do something to improve the neighborhood (and its residents) instead of adding one more dickish punishment to the most vulnerable people in our society?

"It's her business; she can do what she wants." Nope. When your business manages to completely disentangle itself from the rest of society, then you can do whatever you want with it. Until then, you are a part of a larger system of humans working together--no matter how bootstrappy you've fantasized yourself to be--and there are ethical limits to how much of an assbag you can be to the rest of us.

That cop needs to be fired. Next it will be "Can you track down this cute girl I saw on the freeway? I won't rape her I just want to send her a note." Or "I just want to talk to that asshole that cut me off, can you hook me up?"

As someone who's had Crohn's disease-like problems (thankfully not the real thing), the ability to reach a bathroom fast is of paramount importance.My buying decisions have been strongly affected by the availability of washrooms in stores, gas stations, and so forth.

So while I get that evil crapping criminals make work hard for many people (and I've walked into a bathroom or two that made me blanch), how you manage your bathroom-customer plans can effect your income.

Frankenstorm:I work at a pet supply store. To our right is a Dunkin Donuts. To our immediate left is a Subway. Neither establishment allows people to use their bathroom. I let everyone use ours. WTF are people supposed to do? You're fed food and drink, but you can't use the facilities?

/no weird issues ... yet

That seems odd. I thought it was the law in most places that if you serve food or beverages, you must provide facilities to deal with the ultimate end product of those items being consumed.

And that state had the Ally Law, where a business is supposed to let people use their bathrooms.

And if you're ever in a city looking for a bathroom, don't look for a restaurant. Look for a hotel instead. They hardly ever say no to someone using the bathrooms and they are much cleaner than fast food bathrooms.

How hard would it have been just to get a cup of coffee? This is just another example of how the "on demand" world thinks. I don't have to pay for my music and movies. I can pause live TV. I can just go to the bathroom anywhere I please. I am all for businesses putting locks on the facilities. If someone wants to use it, sign out a key and leave your driver's license, so if you get buckshot on the seat, they will send a cleaning bill.

During one year of my life I was making weekly drives between Chicago and Indianapolis. To Indy on Friday evening, back to Chicago on Sunday night. I-65 is a vast, empty stretch of nothing. There's one gas station on one particular stretch that's the only place to stop for a solid 20 minutes or so. I had to use the restroom pretty bad one day so I pulled off the highway, went in, and used the restroom. I noticed a sign that said that the restrooms is for customers only.

I get annoyed by cheap, petty bullshiat like that but I was in kind of a good mood. I had almost a full tank of gas so I went to the cooler and grabbed a pair of energy drinks for the long, late night drive. The owner (as far as I could tell) saw me use the restroom and was watching me the whole time that I was in there. As he's ringing me up he asks in a very accusatory and annoyed tone, "Is that all?"

Yes, motherfarker, that's all. What do you want? I used pennies worth of water and TP and bought a pair of overpriced drinks from you in exchange. In the following several months I never stopped at that gas station again out of principle. Petty assholes don't deserve my money.

Oh, FFS. It is NOT that hard to find a bathroom. The Walgreens around here have decent bathrooms. The 24-hr one does close their's overnight. There are also hotels. I think previous posters have mentioned drug stores and hotels.

Fast food establishments. I have slipped in to use the restroom at a Wendy's or McDonald's before.

Everyone in the story is a jerk. I think the Sherriff is the biggest jerk for sharing the woman's information like that, though.

LtDarkstar:Southern100: Walker: Turns out the local sheriff helped track Barnes down by running her license plate, all as a favor to the owner of the restaurant.

According to the Houston County Sheriff, Darrell Allison, though, it was no biggie.

But, countered local state Rep. John C. Tidwell, "The way I interpret it, it would be illegal," he said, explaining that license plate information is to be used only for law enforcement purposes. "The information should not have ever been given over to the business. That is information that is supposed to be dealt with by the state's agency or the official."

Choosing sides between pigs and politicians isn't easy but I'm gonna have to go with the politician on this one.

Guess the owner of the restaurant never heard of publicdata.com.

THIS!

/Subscriber for over 10 years//Loves layin the smackdown on people that park in 2 spaces

Curious about what you mean by layin the smackdown. What do you do to them?

by federal law, it is illegal to restrict the use of restrooms. I doubt that these mom and pops stores realise that, some do, some don't. They like to think they do because they own the joint. However they don't. Like it or not. Paying for the use of the facilities, is an indirect violation of these laws Any and all establishments that retain a bathroom and or /facilities may be used by the public. This is without discrminiation of all races and thus, remain public.

Lochsteppe:jumac: I work at a second hand store, we lock the bathroom but will unlock it for anyone who needs it. We lock it only so if someone gota use it at lest one employee knows. We have had to many issues with people going in and taking tags off of stuff to get a lower price or taking the tags off and putting the item on and saying it was theirs or, putting it under the cloth they had on(way to many times we see people come in wearing cloth bout 4 sizes to big and leave looking like the same set is tight on them). we also had people go in and destroy the bathroom if they are mad at us. had one destroy the toilet. Another kicked it so much and hard it fell over.

This seems like a pretty reasonable way of handling things. You're controlling access for legitimate business reasons, but you're not being dicks about it.

/I am curious why some of your customers are so mad at you; that seems troubling.

Secondhand stores tend to not be in very nice parts of town, with interesting and colorful customers of all sorts. Particularly if they're a charity scraping up rent each month. "Antique" stores tend to be nicer and more upscale, despite mostly just putting much higher prices on marginally higher quality goods.

From recent Yelp reviews, where soon there weill be only a smoking crater:

[Five stars] Incredibly clean bathroom. It is as if nobody every used it. Stocked with fresh toilet paper, and quality antibacterial soap. Tech tip: order the small coke for $1.09 and save $3.91 on the bathroom charge.

jumac:I work at a second hand store, we lock the bathroom but will unlock it for anyone who needs it. We lock it only so if someone gota use it at lest one employee knows. We have had to many issues with people going in and taking tags off of stuff to get a lower price or taking the tags off and putting the item on and saying it was theirs or, putting it under the cloth they had on(way to many times we see people come in wearing cloth bout 4 sizes to big and leave looking like the same set is tight on them). we also had people go in and destroy the bathroom if they are mad at us. had one destroy the toilet. Another kicked it so much and hard it fell over.

This seems like a pretty reasonable way of handling things. You're controlling access for legitimate business reasons, but you're not being dicks about it.

/I am curious why some of your customers are so mad at you; that seems troubling.

Cop should not have done that.Restaurant owner should be able IMHO to charge $5 but was an arse for sending the bill. Double arse if he didn't even want the money.Lady is over-reacting but has a point.

I was there that afternoon and actually used the restroom after this woman left. She had to have been in there for twenty or thirty minutes. Christ, it sounded like she was being raped with a Duraflame log. Toward the end, I heard the toilet flush a few times then the door opened - the sink never running... As she walks past the line of people waiting on the facilities, she can't even make eye contact with anyone. It was the deepest shame-shiat I've ever witnessed. And my God....

When I walked in there, I wished that I'd brought along an Indian snake charmer. This farking monstrosity was curled up in the toilet, its head raised, corny-teeth bared, just waiting to strike the bare-ass of the next person to sit down. Sit down? Who am I kidding. You would've had to of stomped on it with both feet for ten minutes to get a level playing surface. The whole point of shiatting is leaving shiat behind, not getting additional shiat force fed up your pipes. There was no way I could've used the toilet.

So, at my inconvenience, I took the tank lid off, laid it across the mounded bowl, and used it as a platform to fill the aquarium with my stinking brown trout. That "restaurant" is a bulimics dream, or anyone else who wants to shiat immediately. I hate the manager of the place too - she's always showing me her pussy and bumpy nipples.

Anyway, the dump-and-run lady got off light. That was fifty pounds of raw sewage. But fark the restaurant because all their meat tastes like it was carved off an AIDS patient. I hope everyone involved in this story dies of the wasting disease.

I'm a farktard and I have no problems with law enforcement abusing their databases as a personal favors for vindictive members of the general public. Herpity derpity doo! I just want to belong to the retard chorus, I hear they get sweet robes and go on field trips.

JohnAnnArbor:"Humiliated" is another one. Oh, someone asked you a question at a checkpoint? You felt "humiliated"? Poor baby.

Hmmm. I wonder what word you would use if someone showed up at your door after illegally getting your personal information via the cops, and demanded something from you. Hell, even had you arrested. Let's just go with that.